


time to change the road we’re on

by cosmogony (findingkairos)



Series: we were faster on our feet [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Found Family, Gen, I have taken canon out back and returned with the good bits, Loyalty, Master of Death Harry Potter, Politics, Resistance, Wiki Diving, Worldbuilding, slow burn found family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:09:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25925665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/findingkairos/pseuds/cosmogony
Summary: Harry gets used to the idea of all this royalty business and figures out what he wants to do. Meanwhile, Cor and the others make plans, and Ardyn Lucis Caelum makes a return.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Cor Leonis, Harry Potter & Death
Series: we were faster on our feet [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1757932
Comments: 74
Kudos: 469
Collections: Suggested Good Reads





	1. Cleigne

**Author's Note:**

> ( _like the itch of growing bone_ — you and I, we’re both still learning)
> 
> Set in M.E. 731.

_You didn’t have to do it like that, you know!_

“What, you mean not take the opportunity that was offered?”

 _You were doing so well resisting the temptation, too!_ The little white figure bounced on his toes. _I know I’m not the only one who told you this._

“But they made such tempting targets.”

_And it gave you such a mess to clean up!_

He snorted down at his phone. “Death invited me on a field trip, and you think I wouldn’t take it?”

 _I’m just saying, maybe you rely on Death too much_. _Not just then, but now, too._

Harry smiled wryly as Carbuncle tilted his head, tail wrapped neatly around his paws. “I think it’s a little too late for that.”

The sticking point was that Carbuncle was right: he had trusted Death on that opportunity to off Iedolas Aldercapt and his war cabinet, and things had only snowballed from there. Not in a way that was irrecoverable, or even in a way that tore entire landmasses apart instead of just countries – there was a reason he’d assassinated Besithia first, after all.

But it was undeniably a headache. General Ulldor had tried to crown himself emperor but hadn’t lasted his first year before the others had assassinated him in the name of Aldercapt’s nameless ten-year-old heir. This latest one, some Duchess Tummelt who hadn’t styled herself an empress yet, seemed to be doing better, but there were still refugees filtering in from Niflheim.

Ed and Al had been great help there, their gold hair and eyes earning the trust of the refugees at first sight, but it just wasn’t enough. The companies and industries that supported the common folk _needed_ the war – the miners, the factory workers, the technicians, the greenhouse workers, all of their jobs were paid through the war. They might not be soldiers, but they put food on the table because war created jobs and jobs fed people. They had known nothing else for hundreds of years.

Hermione had called it a military industrial complex. Ron had scowled and called it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And then Harry had gone ahead and destabilized the entire thing, and two years later they were finally getting back on their feet. Not without much hassling by the very countries they had steamrolled over and established as imperial provinces, but they had. Three hundred or so years of occupying Tenebrae had given them a very firm grip on the land, and their military had tried a rebellion and failed. Resistance was everywhere – Harry technically ran one through the Secret Hunters, he would know – but in terms of the war, nothing had changed.

In terms of the lives of Imperial citizens, they had faced an economic downturn that they hadn’t expected to happen for years when their Emperor died of old age, and it had changed everything.

When the Empire’s businessmen and military figured out who it had been to destabilize their economy and profits, they’d come for him. Harry didn’t doubt that. Even now they were putting out feelers, putting up bounties, for the name and face and head of the man who’d assassinated their beloved Emperor-slash-figurehead.

“It has to be a monarchy,” he said, and Gil grunted from where he stood over the map on the kitchen table. “They won’t know how to accept anything else.”

“You could, but you would have to change their constitution.”

“That’d be a long-term project. An ideal to strive for, and all that. In the short term, democracy might work against us.”

Gil glanced up. The glamour said he was raising his eyebrows, but Harry had been the one to put the glamour on him, and the burning eyes in that helmet’s eye sockets never changed. “Because it takes time.”

“Because it takes time.” How had they gotten to this point? “You’d need to get it past their – what do they have, a Privy Council?”

“That’s Insomnia. Niflheim has a Senate and legislative assemblies.”

“Even better. Just one elected body to push legislation through.” What Harry wouldn’t give to have Hermione, or even Amelia Bones here.

Unfortunately for everybody, they’d have to settle for just him.

Cor slipped into the room and settled against the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. “Regis is offering money again.”

“Seriously?” Harry scrubbed his hands over his face. “Did he send a letter with it, too?”

“Not this time. Drautos is staying in town, though.” If that discomfited Cor any then he didn’t let it show on his face. “He wants to talk to you about something.”

Harry looked up from his hands. “I’ve told him before that anything he wants to tell me, he can tell you.”

The corners of Cor’s lips turned down, but he shrugged nonetheless.

So Titus was being like that, then. He and Cor had reached an understanding, a year or so into this mess, because one Crownsguard moving on the orders of his King was less suspicious than the King’s Shield or – Death forbid – the King himself coming over to see his cousin. As far as Harry could tell, they had agreed to disagree.

“Are you even paying attention to scuttlebutt?”

Harry stared. “What?”

“The rumors. Of Cor.” Titus’s eyes widened. “You haven’t been, have you.”

“ _What_?”

“You had to have been paying attention about where Crownsguard thought Cor was, but not _why_.” Titus sounded satisfied, as though he’d gotten a question answered. Maybe he had. Harry couldn’t care two whits about that right now, though. “Crownsguard weren’t just chasing after rumors of the Immortal because King Regis wanted us to. It was because he was a liability. He left the service with all that intel in his head, and that made him dangerous.”

Harry was running out of patience. “And you’re telling me this now, _why_?”

“Because they’ve dropped his watch rating.” Titus shrugged. “It took them two years and change, but they finally believe Regis and me when we say that Cor won’t snap and turn on us, or you.”

Harry stared. Death reached out and gently closed his dropped jaw; from the way Titus didn’t react, it must still be concealing itself from mortal sight.

Titus sighed, harsh and resigned. “I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but there’s no way around it. If you haven’t been keepin’ up then you’ve only kept ahead so far either cause you’re good or you’re lucky, and that’s unacceptable. So listen up. King Mors assigned Cor to Regis’s Retinue because he was the best, and then Regis was pressured by various officers in the ‘guard to let Cor retire because he’s a commoner.”

“…What.”

Titus pressed his lips together. He was already standing at parade rest but somehow he pulled himself straighter, inspection-perfect. “Regis is my King, and I will gladly lay down my life for him. But he was raised a Prince, and in privilege, and he’s never needed to worry about where his next meal will come from or where he’ll sleep at night.”

But Cor had, and Titus had, and the reputation of the Immortal had spread far and wide but a year had given Titus perspective into who Cor was as a person beyond that reputation.

“The rest of the Crownsguard officers are the same – nobility stock, or families that have served for generations. Cor and I – we don’t have that pedigree. The rank and file enlisted are like us, except we’ve been raised in status to Retinue, the close counsel and right hand men of royalty, and those legacy families and nobility work for _years_ for the positions we were handed so easily.”

Something snapped and caught on fire.

Harry blinked and tried to pull himself together. The ‘fyre wouldn’t burn him and it wouldn’t burn Titus, either, because he was not the enemy here, but it looked arcane and the heat of it still radiated and he could tell Titus was pinned down in place by the heavy weight of magic that Harry had summoned in his anger.

It took him a while to banish the Fiendfyre; longer to fold the magic back in again beneath his skin. He’d never had this problem back in his home dimension, but there was a lot of excess magic here, just floating around in the air.

Death said it was because of the Astrals. Personally, Harry thought it was because of all the wyverns and distinctively not regular animals that walked around in broad daylight.

“Okay,” he said, and then again because the first time had come out quiet: “Okay. So what do we do about it.”

Titus was too self-disciplined – or had he been just disciplined? – to blink or flinch. “Sir?”

Oh _Death take it_ not the sirs again. Harry scrubbed at his face with both hands and pulled in air past the pressure on his lungs. “Are any of these people that got angry at Cor gonna do anything about it?”

Titus _scoffed_. “Leonis is known as the Immortal. Even if he calls himself Granica now, as soon as he pulls out a sword people will know him on sight. It’s a suicidal man who’d charge that, and a foolish one who’d try and undermine King Regis by accusing his cousin’s Retinue of being too low-born.”

It had taken him a while, but Harry had gotten good at listening to the unsaid. “And what about you?”

That finally took Titus off guard. “Sir?”

“Are people giving you shite for being like Cor and serving Reggie? For being,” _mudblood_ , “low-born?”

Titus hesitated. “No sir.”

Harry’s first instinct was to tell him _Don’t lie to me_ , but four years and change of turning the House into a refuge for refugees had given him a better sense of social norms than that. “Are they being weirdly passive-aggressive to your face and downright nasty behind your back about your hometown and your pedigree or whatever-the-hell they want to call it?”

This time Titus didn’t say anything. That was an answer in and of itself. _God damn it, Reggie, the hell are you doing?_

Except Regis Lucis Caelum wouldn’t know what he was doing, either, because he wasn’t that much older than Harry himself was, and hells if _Harry_ knew what he was doing. Trained for wartime as he might be, wartime leadership was completely different from peacetime leadership. Harry should know.

He’d have to keep an eye on both Cor and Titus, then. Just in case.

Being aware of the need to keep an eye on someone did not mean that Harry had eyes on the back of his goddamn head.

_Don’t hold it against him. He deserves better than that._

“He almost got himself killed! I don’t care that he took Titus with him, he’s not supposed to go to _Ghorovas!_ ”

AND YOU DID NOT PUT YOURSELF IN DANGER WHEN NEEDED WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER?

Harry crossed his arms over his chest, unamused. They were ganging up on him and he did not appreciate it. “That didn’t mean they should have went into Niff territory!”

 _They were making magitek soldiers!_ Carbuncle tilted his head and yawned, showing off predator’s teeth. _You hate that. He hates that. I hate that. He did the right thing_.

“Cor should have taken some of the others with him,” Harry snarled. “Taking Ed and Al to act as tour guide is one thing, but he only had Titus for back up.”

Because Death knew that Harry couldn’t forbid Cor from running trips like this. The latter would just find a way around it.

 _Does he know that?_ Carbuncle’s eyes were black and filled with stars, nebulae exploding with brilliant colors. _Does he have a team?_

That made Harry pause. The Secret Hunters got hand-to-hand and weapons training from Gil, tactics and operational protocol from Cor, wilderness survival from Dave. They had not, to his recollection, ever run a _combat_ operation. Most of their work was in reconnaissance and couriering.

 _None of them are military,_ Carbuncle said with infinite understanding, _except for Cor. They’re not exactly civilians, but they’re not exactly Crownsguard, either._

They were the Retinue of a Prince-in-Self-Exile, as some of the more Royalist folk in the outer regions of Lucis called Harry, and none of them had the combat experience that Cor had. Of course he hadn’t taken them with him.

So what was Harry supposed to do about that?

Death waved a hand. Skeleton fingers passed through mist, which curled and writhed and wove themselves like a tapestry into a bastardized Penseive.

“You know what they call us? A fake Retinue. They say real ones would have gotten Crownsguard training. They say we’re not experienced enough, trained enough, soldier-like enough. I say fuck that.”

Quietly, Harry asked, “Why are you showing me this?”

WATCH, Death replied.

In the mist-weave of human memory, Dave was folding his arms across his chest and glaring at nothing in particular. Around him were Ed and Al’s golden heads, Sonora’s hard eyes, Marnie bouncing on her feet as she twirled a glass marble between her fingers.

“Hear hear,” Marnie snickered. “Gotta put ‘em in their place.”

“They’ve been fuck-all at tracking down the real Cor,” Ed sniffed, “and they wanna point fingers? Are they ready t’ throw down?”

“That’s not the problem,” Sonora said, and cut her hand through the air. “The problem is that they only see Cor going out to fight monsters. They don’t see us, ‘cause they weren’t supposed to see us.”

“We’re named the Secret Hunters for a reason.” Al leaned back against his brother, who withstood the weight even though Al’s elbow was on his shoulder. “So what’re you proposing? That we’re not so secret anymore?”

“The Crownsguard know us as Retinue,” Marnie pointed out. “But Cleigne and the rest of the outer regions know us as Hunters. We’re already breaking the Insomnian mold as is. What’s a little more confusion?”

Aggie wasn’t here for the conversation – she’d been third to swear the oath, Finn had been the second. Where were they? Did they know about this?

Did _Cor_ know about this?

Harry looked up from the scrying to look Death in the eye. “Why are you showing me this?”

IF YOU DO NOT ACT, it told him, THEY WILL. THEY ARE LIKE YOU, WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER.

It was one thing to know it, in the back of his mind; it was another to be told by a primordial entity that the kids who’d come under his roof for shelter were just as determined as he had been in Fifth, Sixth, Seventh year at Hogwarts.

“I can’t condone it.” Harry _couldn’t_. He was on the other side of the curtain now, and he had a duty to ensure that violence was never asked of from anyone underage.

THEY AREN’T CHILDREN ANYMORE, Death very reasonably pointed out.

It didn’t make the truth any easier to swallow.

“I’m not gonna ask what you’re doing,” Auntie Mae said. Her eyes were dark, and her expression was as serious as it ever got. It made her look even more like Professor McGonagall, and not for the first time Harry debated with himself if Death would know his old professor’s fate and if he’d been the only one chucked over the dimensional lines.

When he found his voice again, he asked her, “What do you mean?”

She pointed a finger at him. “I run this town, remember?”

Auntie Mae didn’t need to tell him twice, but neither was she fond of repeating herself. Harry waited for her to elaborate.

“And I know, too, _Harry James Potter of the Lucis Caelum_ , that you’re here for a reason.”

Not for the first time, Harry cursed out Regis and his methods. Cor said it was his way of showing affection; Harry rather thought it was just him being a troll. It wouldn’t be his first time dealing with older sibling figures who showed that they cared through the most aggravating way possible. “I’m in retirement, Auntie Mae, remember? The retirement that you thoroughly approved of?”

“And _I’d_ be blind to miss the fact that you’ve been prepping the cells in Caem and Galdin Quay.” Her eyes were shrewd over her small circular glasses. She wore them rarely, kept them tucked away unless she absolutely needed to read something in small font. The Veritas mart and its poorly-retired Crownsguard, then. “Also the cells in Lestallum, Hammerhead, and Altissia.”

Altissia’s supply outpost was a new one, set up through a friend of a friend of Regis’s. Also, what did she mean, ‘cells’? Harry overcame the urge to cross his arms, but not the one to shuffle on his feet. “I thought you weren’t asking me about them, Auntie Mae?”

“Oh, I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. I want in.”

Harry blinked. “What?”

Auntie Mae spread her hands. “You’re not the only one seeing where the wind is blowing, Harry. Cleigne is ready. You’re trying to make sure the rest of Lucis is ready, but you and yours don’t need to do it by yourself.”

“ _What?_ ” Harry mentally rifled through the last packages he’d sent out with Marnie. “It’s not – we’re not preparing _resistance cells_ , Auntie Mae. It’s just been food and supplies. Scraps for forging, some electronics for radios.”

“Really?” Auntie Mae raised her eyebrows and leaned back. She looked apologetic, just a little. “That’s not what I heard Ed and Al and Finn had been sneaking in.”

“I’m going to regret asking just what they were putting in.”

“Homebrew incendiaries and DIY ammunition kits.”

Oh, bloody hell. _Of course_ it had been Ed and Al involved – the both of them were so smart, sharp as a tack, Harry’s heart honestly hurt and he was three-quarters of the way through his plan to send those two and some of the others to college – but by themselves, they were fairly harmless.

Finn, however, delighted in fireworks and other explosives. Not to mention that they loved their homes, and for the ones pushed out of them like Titus had been –

Wait a minute. Titus had actually been _working with Cor_ the past few days.

“Oh, no.” Harry put his head in his hands. “I know what you’re talking about. Oh, bloody hell.”

“…Are you alright, Harry?”

“Just quickly reconsidering all my life choices.”

Death had been right. They weren’t children anymore. Whether they ever had been was not the question of the day – not the one worth asking, anyway.

No, that one was, would Harry continue to undermine their own sovereignty as people and rationally thinking adults in order to justify his own selfish want to keep them safe and away from the war?

Okay. So maybe it wasn’t selfish. They’d been under his care for years, and they still looked to him as – what, a leader? An older brother? A mentor figure?

He could do the leadership and the mentorship, but the DA had been first his classmates. They’d built it on equal relationships first, which had morphed into guerilla- and cell-based warfare.

Which, technically, was what they were doing now, if on a much more mundane level. The Secret Hunters had been pivotal in setting up support outposts disguised as Hunter’s postings across outer Lucis, bolstering existing resistance networks and supporting the civilians who lived there during a time of war.

But all of them had sworn Cor’s modified Retinue’s Oath, and they had gone into it with open eyes.

Letters between Regis and Harry were few and far between. More often, they communicated via a message forum that Clarus Amicitia had sworn up and down was secure. Texts could be traced to locations and letters put too many hands between the recipients with the potential for interference, but a message forum could be deleted and there would be no records of it afterwards, not like texts on individual devices.

Cid Sophiar had grumbled curses at Harry under his breath about how he was a mechanic, not a technician, but he’d confirmed the security when Harry had asked him to.

Usually it was Regis who initiated conversation, but this was for a good cause.

> `**Hunter.Green:** can you spare any people for a camping trip`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** For you? Always. What do you need?`
> 
> `**Hunter.Green:** some instructors for things that only the guard can teach`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** You’re finally coming around?`
> 
> `**Hunter.Green:** more like i’ve realized that if i don’t bend now then it’ll irreparably break things later`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** They’ll be there within the month. Same place?`
> 
> `**Hunter.Green:** same time`

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To make the politics somewhat sensible in my head, Niflheim is using a political setup based off the Roman Empire (fitting for their Emperor/expansionist policies), while Insomnia uses one that takes its cues from the British Empire (Privy Council, House of Commons, House of Lords; however, Insomnia takes it further by splitting the Privy into the Inner and Outer Councils, which makes for a lot of politicking and power-shuffling and smoozing at official functions, god, you have no idea, even though the Inner/Outer distinction is recent and based on who gets to know (more) about military movements than others).
> 
> Homebrew incendiaries are self-explanatory (Ed, Al, and Finn were getting those snuck in as kitchen/cooking supplies - don't forget to properly store your household supplies, kids!). Admittedly, knives and swords are more popular in outer Lucis due to not requiring any ammunition, but since Niflheim likes their guns and there are Niff occupiers on Lucian land/the magitek soldiers carry them, DIY ammunition kits are handy for the scavengers in outer Lucis who pick up guns but don't have the means to get their hands on more gun ammo. That, also, gets passed off as soldering and metalworking tools.
> 
> Ed and Al are indeed shout-outs to the Elric brothers in Fullmetal Alchemist - kudos to my keen-eyed readers who caught that in the last fic!


	2. Duscae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry plays bait, wins over some people, and meets a stranger in the middle of the night.

Harry slammed into the dirt, a paintball splashing against his chest with a kick to his ribs, and avoided having his face stomped on by sheer luck.

“Hold! Hold!” someone yelled, and the Crownsguard who’d been escorting him to the car under simulated gunfire scrambled to help Harry up. He took the hand and rose to his feet, and only had to spit out a little bit of blood from where he’d accidentally bit his cheek.

And then the swarming hands and offers of Potions started. “I’m fine,” Harry told them when he got a moment to breathe, like he’d told the last three to tackle him too hard during the drill in their eagerness. “It’s just a little bit of blood, I’m not gonna _die_.”

“Sir,” the one who’d tackled him this time said, “I understand, but if the King finds out that we drew blood, even accidentally, he’s going to _kill us_.”

Harry squinted at the speaker – oh, he was one of the newbies, sent along as part of the ‘training exercise in Duscae’ cover. Which, well. It was a training exercise for everyone involved, even the people who were supposed to be _demonstrating_ things to Harry’s kids, apparently.

“He won’t,” Harry told Dustin Ackers, and clasped the young man on the shoulder like he’d seen Titus do. “Regis is a fighter, he knows a little blood won’t hurt anybody.”

“Apologies. Allow me to rephrase. _Your Shield will kill us_.”

Okay, that was a little more reasonable. Gil wasn’t participating because that would be a fantastic way to give away the gig when they were trying to keep his not-really-mortal status a secret until they absolutely had to, so he was stuck on the sidelines and glowering. Cor had waved it off as supervision while the people who really did need the protection-and-escort training, the Secret Hunters, got said training.

And then Harry had gotten ambitious, apparently. Maybe they should have stuck to the model they’d used yesterday, where Dave and Finn and Aggie and all the rest were the ones running through the protection drill while the Crownsguard played militia-terrorists-assassins. But they’d kept handling with the no-longer-kids with kid gloves, and Cor had been _so close_ to just snapping at somebody and putting the fear of the Immortal into them…

Eh. What was done was done. Harry shook his head for Ackers and jerked his thumb over at Gil. “That lousy git knows that if he even scratches any of you, he’ll have to fix you right up.”

“Too much effort,” Gil said, right on cue. He even deepened the scowl for the effect. “Not worth it. Though maybe I should, for how you all keep letting your guard down.”

More than half of the Crownsguard flinched. Such critique coming from a man who was taller and broader than any of them, not to mention a Shield that Clarus Amiticia had explicitly endorsed, had to be intimidating – even for the blue-blooded ‘guard mixed in with the regular troops.

Regis had sent half veterans and half less experienced Crownsguard, though. What had he been thinking? Was this another one of his plays in order to try and build up Harry’s own support base? Ugh, _politics_.

At least the kids – not that he could really call them kids without them huffing up in offence, but what else was he supposed to call them? The crew? The gang? Hm. – were having a good time.

The Major in charge, a stern lady with a face that reminded him of a bulldog’s, clapped her hands and scowled. “Alright, back to it. And you all can behave yourself like actual Crownsguard any time, now!”

Harry liked her, if only because she was just as hard on the blueblood Crownsguard with their posh accents as she was on the rest of them. She was respectful of the Secret Hunters, too, which was another point in her favor.

The rest of the group scrambled back into starting positions. Harry, playing the role of Principle, obligingly meandered back to the haven. The guard on close quarters duty fell in, one at the front, two to his sides, one at the rear.

Was this how Regis felt, being escorted from place to place all the time? Was this what _Harry_ had to look forward to if he got suckered into visiting Insomnia?

At least the guard looked like they were taking this more seriously. It had only taken them getting beaten by the Secret Hunters four times. They might not have had the close quarters protection training that some of the more sneering ‘guard had hung over their heads like it was a failure, but they were good at ambushes.

And apparently at assassinations, too, which was probably saying something about their rate of Niflheim MT neutralization.

Harry swept the field – haven to the back, jeep just down the hill just twenty meters away – and felt his eyebrows rising. The Royal Guard – the veterans of the person-protection business, who’d gotten exasperated with their rookies’s failures – noticed and took aim.

It still didn’t stop the paintball shot that nailed him between the shoulder blades. “Ow,” Harry said dryly, and because he was supposed to by the rules of the drill he slowly keeled over.

“Oh, _fuck this_ ,” someone muttered, and hauled Harry over his shoulder to start sprinting toward the car. The rest of the close guard fell in, trying to bodily cover them from the rise – except they forgot to account for Cor, who was small, sneaky, and brutal.

Harry was starting to just feel plain bad for them.

“And what did we learn today?”

To their credit, the gathered men and women didn’t flinch. Though that might be the exhaustion. “Don’t underestimate Prince Harry’s men,” Ackers offered when the silence dragged on too long.

The Major nodded, her face set. Then she turned to Harry and the people next to him. “And you all?”

Cor was the only one who straightened under the woman’s gaze. Dave just smirked, his paintball rifle leaning against his shoulder; Finn was spinning a knife, slowly and hypnotically; Aggie and Ed and Al had their heads bent together again, no doubt discussing how to make things go boom..

“How not to get Harry killed,” Marnie replied for the group, smiling brightly. “Though we might need to learn how to drive first.”

The Major stared. Harry stared. Cor blinked, sighed, and put his face into his hands. “I knew I was forgetting something.”

Right, Cor said he’d usually walked, ran, or hitched a ride when he was in the Crownsguard. Harry shook his head when Major Schneider looked to him. _He_ didn’t know how to drive a car, either.

“We’ll teach you,” Schneider said at last, in the tone of voice of a woman who had accepted her fate. At least she was a good sport about it.

Then she left a handful of the people she’d brought with her at the closest Hunter outpost – “Sorry, Highness, it’s the King’s orders.” – which Harry was decidedly less enthused about.

> `**Hunter.Green:** seriously? you snuck in babysitters as instructors just so you could leave them with me?`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** Just until things are a little more stable. The city has not been quiet, and neither has our neighbor.`
> 
> `**Hunter.Green:** that doesn’t mean i need five entire guards from YOUR protection detail dropped on me!`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** We’ve been getting very unsettling reports.`
> 
> `**Hunter.Green:** there are always unsettling reports. usually that’s situation normal. what changed?`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** I had a vision. Or a prophecy dream. Clarus says it’s a nightmare but it felt…`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** Too real.`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** I don’t know when. I don’t know how. But-`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** Please put up with them. For my sake.`
> 
> `**Hunter.Green:** fine. but you stay safe too, you hear? i have no interest of taking over your headache of a job.`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** Love you too, cousin.`
> 
> `**Hunter.Green:** asd;lkfj`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** Was I not supposed to say that?`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** Cid says it’s very important for developing familial relationships to make their feelings clear.`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** He says that’s true for all important relationships, actually. I’ve found that it’s helping tremendously with my friendships. I’ve even got Clarus to blush! I can send you the picture if you’d like.`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** Harry?`
> 
> `**Hunter.Green:** Hi boss majesty sir I think you kinda broke Harry don’t worry he’ll be back later -DA`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** Please tell him to take his time. I’m in no rush.`
> 
> `**Hunter.Green:** Will do -DA`

Carbuncle blinked and then yawned, showing off perfect pearly-white predator’s teeth. _Didn’t Death say that you hate him?_

…Death was gossiping again about him? Never mind that. “I don’t hate him, just…” greatly dislike? Be exasperated by? Confused? Annoyed? “Look, I don’t want him _dead_.”

_He’s the king of a country! He has all those Royal Guards shadowing him all the time, and the Shield, and the rest of the Crownsguard._

“And the weight of a crown on his head and the responsibility of a country on his shoulders.” Harry sighed. “Just… please, Carbuncle.”

The dream deity licked his chops. Did dreams taste like anything? _Well, you said the magic word. And because it’s you asking._

“Thanks, Carbuncle.”

Overall, it wasn’t too bad. The Royal Guard squadron that Regis had assigned him even brought interesting conversations to the dinner table, once they unbent enough that they didn’t insist on standing against the wall or in front of the windows or patrolling the roofs – which, what? – while Harry fed the rest of the House.

They were also a real bloody learning experience in Harry’s opinion. Death just snickered at him when Harry looked over at him with wide, sad eyes over their continuing discussion with Dave and the rest of them about _protocol and how they were expected to conduct themselves_.

“Okay, so how do the Retinue factor into this?” And there was Sonora, continuing the conversation. It was useful, Harry didn’t deny it. But did they have to do it while he was _knitting_?

Gil nudged his foot without even looking away from his nightly sword maintenance routine.

Captain Nimbus of the Royal Guard didn’t even blink, just continued to answer questions. “You can think of us as guarding His Highness’s physical safety,” she said, and waved at Harry. “The Retinue guards him from everything else. Political maneuvering, ill-advised decisions, gaps in understanding.”

“Ohhh.” More than one person started nodding in understanding. Harry ignored them all because he’d dropped a stitch somewhere, bloody _hell_. Sonora’s voice rose above the din: “Advisors and assistants, right. That makes sense.”

“Everybody works together, though.” It took Harry a moment to place the voice, but that was one of the junior members of the Royal Guard. Monica something. Ellis? No, Elshett. “I transferred from the Crownsguard, and I still liaison with them on behalf of the squad whenever we need support or more resources.”

“We do report directly to the royal in question like the Retinue does.” Lower voice, a distinctly Lestallum accent; that would be Simon Otto. “Crownsguard report to whoever their superior is, working up to the Lord Marshal. Technically Lord Amicitia is leader of the Crownsguard as the Shield, but the Lord Marshal would be responsible for the day-to-day.”

“That’s a headache,” Ed muttered from where he was sprawled on top of his brother. Harry didn’t even have to look up to know that Cor was nodding in agreement.

“You’ll get used to it,” Simon cheerfully replied. Harry found himself looking through his baskets of yarn before he realized what he was doing and yanked his hand back. All the ones nearby were the wrong colors for the man anyway, the blue-blacks and greys would fit Monica and Captain Nimbus better.

“So what does that make us?” Sonora was thoughtful, the way she sounded when she was piecing together field reports into something actually workable. “We’re not necessarily advisors, or administrative assistants.”

“Fuck paperwork,” was Ed’s cheerful contribution. There was a murmuring _hear, hear_ from the rest of the Secret Hunters, to the Royal Guard’s practically radiating amusement.

“We’re more like field agents and an individual organization. _You’re_ the administrative assistant,” Finn pointed out.

“What did I do to deserve this slander?”

“Be good at negotiating for supplies,” the rest of the Hunters spoke in unison. Harry looked up. The Royal Guard were staring at the group with wide eyes and startled expressions. Oh, that never got old.

Sonora scowled as though they’d personally offended her, but her eyes were sparkling.

“You all don’t fit into a neat box,” was all Captain Nimbus said. She, at least, sounded thoughtful and not pointed, which was a step up from the blueblooded Crownsguard officers from earlier today.

“But most of you are Crownsguard stock, then?” That was one of the other Royal Guards who stayed quiet. They weren’t bracketing the doors or windows anymore, not after Harry had waved his fingers and brought the Protego into the visible spectrum so they could see it, but they were still glancing at the entry and exit points like Cor still did when he was nervy.

“I guess?” Al waved from where he was pinned under his brother. “Or maybe Border Patrol. They’re the ones we see the most on our routes. But everyone does whatever needs to be done.”

“Finn, Marnie, Peter, and Ken stay close by,” Cor quietly offered. The attention of the room turned to him like flowers to sunlight, but he bore it well. “Quintus and Odin take point in Leide; Ed and Al know Duscae best, but float where they need to. Florence runs messages and supplies, as do Judie and Aggie.”

“Cor, me, and Sonora talk to the other groups,” Dave added, jerking his thumb. “My ma’s the Head of the Hunters, and Sonora knows everyone who’s anyone from here to Leide.”

“A good mix, then.” Captain Nimbus, to her credit, absorbed this all with a straight face. Her squadron had mixed results on that front; Harry hid his snicker beneath the clacking noise of his knitting needles. “What support do you need?”

Dave nudged Cor in the ribs, who blinked. “Poison identification, mostly. I did anti-terrorism and sniper training, too, but…”

“It’s one thing to lecture and another to experience.” Nimbus leaned back, satisfied. “Don’t worry, we’ll bring you all up to speed.”

Shop talk devolved from there into scattered groups as people started feeling each other out on an individual level. Harry hummed and nodded or shook his head as he was prompted, but it seemed like they could self-regulate now.

SEE? Death said over his shoulder, and tapped the last knit Harry had done. THEY’LL BE FINE. ALSO, BE CAREFUL OF THE PURL-KNIT PATTERN. YOU KEEP MISSING IT.

 _Thanks_ , Harry mouthed, and went back to fix the bloody thing.

It felt like another hour had passed – Gil had certainly finished up his sword maintenance and had gotten involved in a rumbling conversation about swords versus knives in fighting – when someone asked over the din, “What’s next?”

Everyone looked at Harry. Harry finished up the latest row and set his needles aside. “Duscae. We’ve got interesting reports coming out of Altissia, and we need to get the Quay ready.”

He knew his own people would agree to it. They’d been setting up for months already, apparently with or without him (and hadn’t that been a fun conversation to have with Dave). It was the Royal Guards that he didn’t know how to read just yet.

But Captain Nimbus tapped her fist to her chest, and her people did the same only a second behind her. “We’re here for you, Highness. Whatever you need.”

“First of all, don’t call me Highness,” Harry said. “Second, you guys know anything about smuggling?”

From the wide-eyed glances the guard sent each other, he’d asked them something sacrilegious. It couldn’t be the latter, everyone and their mother knew that the “Prince in Exile” that the news liked to yell about smuggled supplies and people across Lucis as needed. Ugh, _protocol_.

Or, bloody hell, was it _culture_?

Death snickered at him, unhelpful as always.

There had been several anti-royalist factions in Duscae. But ‘had been’ was the key phrase there, because as Dave liked to tell him, everyone knew where their radios and their seeds and their daemon slayers had come from.

That was the order of importance, apparently. Daemons were just like anything else this far out from the safety of the Walls, where any of the wildlife could kill you if you pissed it off enough, but information was worth its weight in metaphorical gold and growing your own food was tedious when it was carrots for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

So Harry shipped Ed and Al and whoever wanted to go with them for the weekend – none of the Royal Guard, but Sonora was in the middle of negotiations with Saxham Outpost and Aggie had to resupply some of the Duscae caches to keep up with one of the cells who were really going through the homebrew incendiaries faster than was normal – and turned his attention to the southwest.

To Niflheim, because apparently they had an Imperial Prince now. Announced just last night, on live television, to all of Eos.

“That’d be why Duchess Tummelt hasn’t crowned herself Empress,” Harry muttered over the map. Captain Nimbus was bent over it with him, putting in her two cents as an agent for the Royal Family who’d spent some time guarding Angelgard before the Massacre went down.

“Shadow rulers,” Gil grunted. “No one will crown a ten-year-old Emperor. What’s the age of majority there?”

Harry made to check the brief, but Monica beat him to it: “Fifteen.”

“So five more years.” Simon was at parade rest against the wall, which was apparently a thing that all the guard did when they were unsure of what to do. Harry wondered almost furiously idly if they’d learn that from King Mors or King Regis. “But a lot can happen five years. Why not kill him off, frame somebody else, and rule instead?”

Gil shook his head. “Aldercapt’s blood held the throne for centuries. Either the child dies and there is no blood claim, leaving the vultures free to fight amongst themselves; or she keeps the child alive and installs herself as Regent, bring him up to be grateful to her and her family, and influence him to her agenda while she herself is lauded by the public as the loyal and dutiful Duchess who serves the Empire.”

Harry tilted his head, the _Gralea_ on the map blurring in his sight. As public relations went, if what Gil thought was true, it was horribly clever and brilliantly executed. No doubt that any children that Duchess Tummelt had was going to be brought up as a childhood friend of the Imperial Prince, to later serve as close confidante and be placed in a position of high power.

It stabilized Nifleim and stoked their citizenry’s patriotism. It gave the Niflheim armies something to rally around. It smoothed the ruffled feathers of their business magnates and nobility and politicians. Duchess Tummelt had set herself up with the king’s piece and the loyalty of all the rest.

“This was always going to be the long game,” Harry told the table quietly. Cor and Dave and Gil, who’d been here since the beginning with him, knew it. The Royal Guard were too professional to show their disappointment. “But this is our proof of concept.”

Nimbus raised an eyebrow. “Of what?”

“That Tummelt can be reasoned with.” Harry gestured over the map, finger brushing across countries as he went. “She wants to maintain power. With two years between the last emperor and the declaration of the Imperial Prince, something must have happened. Either she wasn’t ready, or _he_ wasn’t ready. But now that she’s positioned herself as Regent, with the claim that a Duke has in the nobility hierarchy, she needs to show herself as holding the Empire’s best wishes in mind or risk being undermined. And what does a country need to live?”

Dave humored him: “Trade and politics.”

“They’re surrounded on all sides by countries that they conquered and have come to rely on: Tenebrae, Accordo, Altissia.” North, east, and further east from Niflheim still, but Altissia was the most maneuverable of all of them. Accordo and Tenebrae would need to march across land and into the range of already-established outposts and bases, but all Altissia would need to do was launch their naval fleet. Niflheim’s army recognized this too, if the way they were desperately trying to hold onto Altissia was any indication.

But that was the thing about moving in on foreign countries and trying to take their sovereignty away: people got offended, and offended people held grudges. _Protectorate_ was, after all, just another fancy word for _conquered_.

“Tenebrae exports mostly wood and other natural resources. Accordo is a league of towns and does a range of things, but they _import_ finished goods – clothing, medicine – from Niflheim. Same with Altissia, who ply them with the luxury seafood and act as their main port city with Insomnia.”

“Key term being, of course, _port city_.” Dave leaned in and tapped on Altissia’s bright blue marker. “No one on either side, Niff or Lucian, will agree to a ceasefire so readily. It would backfire on them at home; both sides want blood and repercussions. But a port city, a relatively neutral location, with its own naval force?”

Simon raised his hand. “Uh, _does_ Altissia have its own naval force? When it’s the capital city of the Accordo _Protectorate_?”

Cor tilted his head. “What is a naval force if not a fleet of ships under the command of a leader?”

Monica’s head jerked up. “You don’t mean-”

“Camelia Claustra is a strong woman.” Harry leaned back, satisfied. “I’ve never met the woman, but I know Regis and his friends contacted her, some years ago. By all accounts, she could give Leviathan a run for her money.”

“And King Regis left his advisor in the city,” Nimbus breathed out.

“I don’t think it was intentional,” Harry added, because honesty was the best policy when in a planning meeting like this. “But it certainly works in our favor.”

“Hence Duscae, and the Quay.” Simon stared at the map, shocked out of his parade rest, then at Harry. “Sir. _Highness_.”

“It’s a long game, but it’s doable.” Harry looked around the room, and here, where it wasn’t just his Hunters who’d known what the plan was for a long time, there was the dawning comprehension and relief of the end of the long tunnel being in sight. “That’s why I’m out here. The resistance cells, it being a region-wide thing, that’s new, but peace was always the end goal.”

The Royal Guard burst into questions and chatter. Dave tried to answer them all best he could, which was pretty damn good, he’d been here since almost the beginning. Cor stayed in his corner and watched the room, but he was wearing the hat Harry had knit.

Gardens and knitting; sunlight and full tables of food. The orphans in the house that the Royal Guard was still tip-toeing around, because inner city Insomnians lived with the knowledge of the war but not the weight of it.

“Ours is the righteous path,” Gil murmured, and Harry started rearranging the markers on the map.

HARRY. WAKE UP.

Harry woke up with his wand in his fingers and a Protego on his tongue. Death waved him down and threw his jacket around his shoulders and tugged the hood up. COME. I HAVE SOMEONE TO INTRODUCE YOU TO.

“What? Who?” Harry scrubbed his face, careful not to disturb the hood of the jacket – Royal black in Reggie’s attempt to dress him in Lucis Caelum colors, but at least this one was warm. A quick glance at his (magicked, reinforced, bullet-proof – Nimbus was _paranoid_ ) window confirmed that the moon was still out. Was it one of his Hunters?

Wait, no, Death had said _introduce you_ , so it couldn’t be one of his people in an emergency.

A PERSON OF INTEREST, Death said, because that wasn’t cryptic at all, and then pointed over Harry’s shoulder. YOU, TOO.

Gil ghosted forward the rest of the way, his body filtering through the wall. Harry blinked so that the glamour of a flesh-and-blood mortal man in pajamas jutting out of the wall like a horror prop went away. “Myself?”

YES, YOU. NOW COME.

The journey was quick and silent, only interrupted once when Gil hesitated over the threshold of the house and Harry turned around to see Cor at their backs, fully dressed, sword slung at his hip. He had a mulish look to his eye, the tip of his chin held in challenge; but he hadn’t woken up the rest of the house.

Harry gestured him close, and together they went to where Death wanted them to go. Which was just over the hill, apparently, and into the shadow of Ravatogh overhead.

At the foot of the Rock was a slim man in a dapper hat, outlined in the shadow of the moon.

Harry stopped when Death did, Cor settling in at his elbow. Death said nothing, and neither did the stranger.

Gil tripped. “You’re _alive?!_ ”

The shadows around the man dropped away like a cloak. The moonlight illuminated the stranger’s pale face, red hair, _red eyes_. “ _You’re_ alive?”

Death leaned around Cor to hand Harry a bag of popcorn. THIS IS CUSTOMARY, ISN’T IT?

“YOU BETRAYED ME,” the stranger was saying, summoning a sword from thin air. Well, then. Lucis Caelum or Nox Fleuret or a dimensional traveler, like Harry. Cor tensed by his side, but didn’t move when Gil summoned his own sword.

“SOMNUS TOLD ME THE TRUTH,” Gil shouted back. “THOU WERT ABOUT TO BRING DARKNESS UPON THE LANDS-”

There was a clashing of swords. Cor grunted. “So who’s he, to make Gil fall back on olden speech?”

Death shrugged. THE ONE WHO EVADES ME.

Ah, _bloody hell_. Harry finished chewing and swallowing to glare at Death. “So you brought me here to have him pass on?”

WELL, YES. EVENTUALLY. I AM PATIENT, YOU KNOW.

“But first, catharsis.”

AND CARBUNCLE INSISTED.

Carbuncle? Harry looked down on instinct, and the little dream deity gave him a friendly nod.

Cor stared. “Uh.”

“I WAS A _HEALER_ , YOU DAMN FOOL-”

Harry tilted his head. “You usually just appear in dreams. What’s up?”

His phone pinged in real life like it did in dreams when Carbuncle spoke to him. _Because they need to kiss!_

Cor choked on where he’d been leaning over to read the screen with Harry. “What? _Them_?”

“THINE OWN BROTHER, MINE OWN GODS, DECREED IT SO – WHAT WAS I TO DO?”

 _Yes, them_. Carbuncle’s horn flashed, even as he grinned. _True love will fix the curse!_

Harry looked at his phone, then at Carbuncle. “Are you sure you’re not mixing up your fables?”

 _No, I’m very sure._ Carbuncle sat down primly and started washing his ears, entirely ignoring the very real fight between a ghost and… another ghost? As they tried to lop each other’s heads off. _Bahamut and the rest of the Astrals want to get rid of the daemons and kill the Starscourge Incarnate one way, but that’s not the only way. Why else would we have stories?_

“To give hope,” Cor said quietly. He was looking at the dream deity now, not the fighting, and as Carbuncle stopped what he was doing to blink up at him, Cor swallowed and drew his courage again: “To teach, and to inform, and to make things just that little bit better.”

Carbuncle blinked once, slowly and deliberately. Harry put an arm around Cor’s shoulders.

 _Very true_. Carbuncle didn’t look away, even as he kept texting to Harry’s phone: _The Starscourge as been around as long as humans have been around. Science can kill it temporarily, but only magic can kill it permanently. And how is magic powered?_

Harry knew the answer. He had known it since he’d shattered the glass keeping the zoo snake captive. “Emotions.” Panic and despair, yes, but love and trust, too. There was a reason the Patronus charm worked at all.

 _The Adagium is the host of the Starscourge. If he is cleansed, the rest will die, a disease without root_. Carbuncle bounced on his toes and then leapt up, so that he was balancing on Cor’s shoulder. _So, true love’s kiss!_

Wait. “What about a Patronus?”

Carbuncle tilted his head, regarding Harry from his new vantage point that put him almost at eye-level. Behind the deity’s head, Cor’s eyes widened.

 _Maybe_ , he said at last. _You might need to do it more than once, and Bahamut will be able to tell-_

LET THAT SACK OF BLADES COMPLAIN, Death interrupted. LET HIM TRY.

Harry stared. In all the years that he’d known it, Death had never put that much emotion, annoyance or not, into its tone before.

Carbuncle snickered. _Has he been giving you trouble again?_

OH, YOU KNOW IT.

“I _TRUSTED YOU_ ,” the stranger cried out, and oh. That was full of – grief, and betrayal. Damn.

Gil froze, his blade centimeters from the man’s neck. Then he slumped, a mountain crumbling. “I’m sorry,” he said, but the night was so quiet Harry could hear it where he stood.

“ _Sorry_ is not enough.”

Dead silence. And then: “Now kiss.”

Gil and the stranger both whipped around, blades coming up as if they hadn’t realized they’d had an audience this entire time. Harry would find it funnier if the – the Starscourge Incarnate? – the man’s hair hadn’t risen up and started writhing like daemons did when they were angry.

“Says Carbuncle,” Cor added blandly, and gestured to the dream deity still sitting on his shoulder. “Are you guys done yet?”

Gil recovered first, lowering his sword and drawing himself up in affront. “ _Kiss?_ ”

“It’s either that or –” Harry thought of Nimbus’s façade cracking for just a moment in joy and hope, the realization that the end of the centuries long war might happen in her lifetime. His Patronus leapt forward, as easy as breathing, and stepped carefully forward to nuzzle the stranger’s sword hand.

The man stared at the silver stag as though it was a loved one. He mouthed a word, soundless, face paling even further in the moonlight.

The shadows didn’t writhe or die so much as _shrink_ , as though the sun had passed overhead and dismissed them with the certainty of the laws of physics.

Carbuncle sniffed. Harry’s phone pinged again, the only sound in the quiet. _I still think my method was better_.

Harry snorted. “Can I ask _why_ you thought Gil would be able to give a true love’s kiss?”

Gil choked.

Carbuncle huffed, a clear derisive noise that didn’t translate to text. _Whoever said true love had to be romantic?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will probably come back in the morning and hit this with another round of _in situ_ editing, but have this in the meantime! And I finally figured out how to make the texts look like _texts_ ahah _ha!_
> 
> The [Royal Guard](https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Royal_Guard_\(group\)) were the canonical precursor to the Kingsglaive, who were established/replaced the Royal Guard in M.E. 741. Their squads are named after their leaders, of which Nimbus (the developer's shout-out to an Imperial L'Cie from FFXIII/Type-0) is one.
> 
> Thus, the Retinue have the highest percentage of legacy (parent/s being Crownsguard) or nobility recruits, followed by the Crownsguard (mostly officers and up; recruits come from anywhere, Insomnia or not), the Royal Guard (who take the cream of the crop of the Crownsguard regardless of birth), and the Border Patrol (nobility mostly pull strings to get officer and management positions).
> 
>  **Prince Harry's Royal Guard:**  
>  _Captain Astraea Nimbus_ , Referred To Only By Last Name, head of Harry's immediate Royal Guard detail; veteran of the Great War, hyper-competent, barrier queen, call sign Nimbus-1  
>  _1st Lt. Simon Otto_ , Lestallum accent, cheerful, the warmth to Nimbus's dour seriousness, hell on wheels (crazy driver) and squad medic, call sign Nimbus-2  
>  _2nd Lt. Griffon Aubelle_ , stern with an iron backbone, extremely talented but quietly competent, squad sniper and ordinance expert, call sign Nimbus-3  
>  _Warrant Officer Kabira Fores_ , quiet wit, looks to utilize least effort for maximum gain, squad mage and magical powerhouse, call sign Nimbus-4  
>  _Warrant Officer[Monica Elshett](https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Monica_Elshett)_, newest addition to Nimbus Squad, transferred from Crownsguard and still works as liaison, precision magic control rivaling Lucis Caelum talent, squad administrative and intel expert, call sign Nimbus-5
> 
> Technically, Astraea Nimbus should be a Major instead of a Captain, but the Royal Guard bends a lot of rules with their canonical five-person squadron. So, HRH Harry would be considered the Colonel of his own guard regiment (of rotating Royal Guard Squadrons; he only has the one because Regis didn't want to overwhelm him), while HM Regis would be Colonel-in-Chief of the Household Division... I swear at some point I'll draw this thing out, I've started cannibalizing the British Army hierarchy to make it make sense for my vision of the Lucian Crownsguard.


	3. Leide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People teach Ardyn how to garden, Harry goes to visit Leide, and the Secret Hunters are (finally) folded into the Crownsguard. All in all, it's been a pretty productive week!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...how much do y'all love worldbuilding?

It took a little while for Gil, and the stranger, to calm down and explain exactly what the bloody hell was going on. By that point the sun was threatening to rise over the Rock, which Harry squinted at in hope that it might stall where it was or reverse direction.

It did not. He could practically hear Nimbus’s lecture about protocol and proper escort all the way from here.

The stranger was still hugging Harry’s patronus, as though it chased off nightmares.

IT DOES, Death said, still visible to only Carbuncle and Harry so that no one got a red glowing sword stuck through the face when the stranger startled. HE’S THE STARSCOURGE INCARNATE, THEY ARE ALWAYS CHATTERING. MOST ANNOYING THING IN THE UNIVERSE TO DEAL WITH.

That was… Harry squinted. It wasn’t quite sympathy, but it wasn’t quite pity either. Something in the nebulous in-between that was aggravation and annoyance and understanding, all at once, in the way only Death could manage.

“Highness,” Gil said, and pressed his fist to his heart in the modern Lucian salute to royalty. “May I present Ardyn Lucis Caelum, the Healer King. Ardyn, this is Harry James Potter of the Lucis Caelum.”

Ardyn leaned forward without letting go of the long-suffering stag. “ _Of_ the Lucis Caelum, you say? So not a direct descendent?”

“The bloodwork is all murky,” Harry returned dryly, because that had been one of the first things that Regis had tried to do to figure out just how they were related. The results came back differently every time it was run, which apparently annoyed his nobility to no end. “Regis and I are cousins at the very least, though, which makes you my cousin too.”

“Not great-whatever-the-fuck grandfather?” Cor asked. He sounded perfectly serious, but Harry knew those slumped shoulders of his – he was poking fun.

“Cousin, grandfather, what does it matter?” Harry waved a hand and grinned in Ardyn’s blinking confused face. “Anyway, you just want to pass on, right?”

Gil brought himself up, aggressive and bristling, before he caught himself. Ardyn’s eyes widened. “I want revenge on the gods,” he growled, “for they have deceived me, they have deceived _all_ of us mortals, and they no longer deserve to stand on their pedestals and _sneer_ at the rest of us!”

“Okay,” Harry said patiently, “but after that you want to move on, right? Or at least retire?”

Ardyn didn’t seem to see him. He was staring at the Patronus instead, whose antlers were casually spearing him through the shoulder. Usually Patronuses could not wound the physical body, attacking the spiritual and the magical instead, but Harry wondered if the Patronus’s body filtering through Ardyn was what kept the madness at bay. “I want to see Aera again.”

Gil was a ghost occupying a suit of armor; by all laws of physics he shouldn’t have been able to wilt, but he managed it.

I DO NOT KNOW WHERE SOULS GO, Death answered before Harry could ask it. ONLY THAT THEY ARE OFF TO THE NEXT GREAT ADVENTURE. HE MAY SEE HIS FIANCEE AGAIN; HE MAY NOT.

Ardyn startled, looking up and paling at the sight of Death. Harry suppressed a snicker, because no matter the occasion, it was still funny. “But it will still be rest from this madness,” Ardyn whispered.

YES.

“Then I want that, and the Astral’s humbling.” Ardyn turned to look at Harry. Cor stepped in front of him so that he was blocking the way to Harry with at least a shoulder and half his body, which worked because he was _taller than Harry_ now. “I only worked for Niflheim because we had the same goals, and because they proved useful, like with trapping Ifrit.”

“Ifrit the Astral?” Gil bit out. He still looked torn between whether to stand on Harry’s side or Ardyn’s – right, First Shield, the history books never talked about a Healer King so he must have been struck from the record. Typical bloody politics.

THAT WAS YOU? Death asked. Its voice never pitched from bland, mild, even, but this time there was an undercurrent of… something.

“Niflheim wanted a god, but Ifrit is mine,” Ardyn said, and smiled. Whatever visage that Death took with him, he did not seem too concerned about repercussions – though that might be from living with a chorus of demons inside your head.

Death kept staring. WELL. THAT WILL COMPLICATE THINGS A LITTLE.

Harry weathered Captain Nimbus’s very polite, very mild lecture without trying to contest it. The woman and her team were just trying to do her job.

Then they tried to stab Ardyn as he sauntered through the door. Gil flickered out of sight, the glamour interpreting it as him ducking behind Ardyn and making his way to the back door of the house. Ardyn just smiled and let the ice and fire splash against him like water.

“And _that’s_ what we were outside for,” Harry said mildly when all was said and done. Nimbus Squad had formed up around him, leaving him and Cor in the middle. “Captain, this is Ardyn.”

“Hello,” Arydn said, now hugging a stuffed stag faintly glimmering Patronus-silver to his chest. He’d lost the hat somewhere in the walk from the Rock to the House, and it made him look younger, less driven by grief and madness. “What a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

Nimbus eyed Ardyn and, with the rest of her squad keeping eyes (and some weapons) on the stranger, turned to level a look at Harry. “ _Highness_.”

“Don’t worry about it!” Harry told her and started wading through the bristling Royal Guard so that he could snag Ardyn by the elbow. “I’m off to teach him how to garden, okay thanks bye!”

Cor was on his heels, which was probably the only reason why Nimbus let him go.

He did see Griffon on the roof with his rifle when they were gardening – under the shimmering illusion magic borrowed from Regis that meant they weren’t supposed to be seen, but being the Master of Death had to be good for _something_. Ardyn didn’t look like he noticed the sniper, but then again, he seemed more interested in the care of cherry tomatoes than Harry thought possible.

Eventually Odin bit the bullet and asked, “Can I ask about the stag?”

“Comfort object,” Harry said. “Don’t ask him about it.”

“Comfort from _what_?” Ed asked, and then immediately looked like he regretted it. Or maybe that was his brother stomping hard on his foot to shut him up.

Sonora ignored the interplay, leaning in toward Ardyn in the middle of his story-time. “Wait, so what’s the prophecy?”

“When darkness veils the world, the King of Light shall come.”

“…that’s so vague,” Sonora said at last, her eyes wide. “There are _so many loopholes_.”

Everyone stared at Sonora. Then Judie made a ‘gimme’ motion at her brother, who sighed and started digging through his pockets.

“Wait, did you guys seriously bet on how soon I’d start looking for loopholes?”

“Back to the topic at hand,” Gil said dryly. “According to Ardyn, Niflheim creates their magitek infantry from a mixture of daemons and humans. The destruction of the First Magitek Production Facility four years ago slowed them down some, but not enough – until now.”

“Only the Royal Line,” Kabira said. Though she was easy at parade rest by the door, her eyes had climbed up to her hairline. “ _Only_ you and your cousin, Highness, could find the one lynchpin of the enemy.”

“Not lynchpin singular,” Ardyn corrected. “Also, there’s more to the Prophecy than that – the King of Stone, the Starscourge, et cetera et cetera; they’re mostly noted in the Cosmogony in antiquity, poetic and riddled with riddles and wordplay-”

“So a perfect afternoon for you,” Marnie snickered, and elbowed Sonora in the ribs. “Ten says that Sonora’ll be done with it by next week.”

Peter raised his hand. “Fifteen that she’ll be ready to tear the Astrals a new one.”

Dave shook his head, drumming his fingers on his knee. “No, we’ve got that thing in Altissia next week that we need her for; twenty that we’ll have a workable plan by then, though.”

Harry gave up trying to pin down what they were talking about. “What?”

“Your fingers are shining,” Simon told him very dryly, and Harry glanced down to see that, yeah, bloody hell, they were lit up like if he’d cast Lumos using just his fingers. “King of Light much?”

He threw up his hands, Patronus-silver fingers and all. “Why are you so determined that I’m the king of whatever the hell?”

Everyone stared at him. Harry stared back. Eventually Monica took pity on him and took his hand, folded it between both of hers, and said very seriously, “You’ve the Royal blood, Highness. You talk to Death. You’re been working to bring peace, and hell to Niflheim along the way. Why _wouldn’t_ you be the King of Light?”

“I’ve already been a child of prophecy thank you, 0/10, do not recommend.”

“Wait, what?”

“And that’s my cue to escape!” Harry told the too crowded room and swiped up his basket of yarn and his latest knitting project to do just that.

Cor found him afterwards when he was sitting on the roof, and without hesitation he asked, “ _Would_ you accept me as your Shield?”

Harry dropped his last stitch and cursed under his breath. Cor stayed stock-still, cross-legged on the roof with him, staring into the wilds of Ravatogh. When Harry had fixed his knitting and pulled his thoughts out of the meditative knitting state and back into something vaguely workable, he said, “Do I have to make excuses for Gil’s death-slash-moving-on?”

“What? No. He hasn’t chosen to have Death take him yet.”

“Is that not why you’re asking to replace him as Shield?”

Cor paused for a long, quiet moment. “He said he’d recommend making me the Shield when he passes on.”

Right. Gil was the First Shield; he must have sworn himself to Ardyn at some point or another, before he betrayed the man and then exiled himself to atone. But that wasn’t pride in Cor’s tone, that was anxiety and concern. “Do you _want_ to be Shield?”

Cor’s spine straightened. “It would be an honor. But…”

Harry didn’t rush him. Eventually, between him shuffling through the yarn colors in his basket – maybe something maroon and orange for Monica? – and glancing over at Cor, his friend said, “The only reason Gil could get away with being named Shield is because Clarus endorsed it. I don’t know if he’ll endorse me.”

If Clarus Amicitia even _implied_ that Cor was unfit or unskilled or whatever it was that Cor was worried about, Harry would skin him alive. Or turn him into a chocobo again and use him for feather fodder. The latter would probably be more traumatic and entertaining, actually. Harry rather thought the pale dawn-pink feathers he’d given the man looked quite nice, and he could think of three different projects to use them in off the top of his head.

Cor must have read something in Harry’s body language, though, because he put up both hands. “You don’t have to name me. Any of the Royal Guard would be honored-”

“Do you _want_ to be Shield?”

Cor stilled. Harry felt his perception of the night, noisy Granica House and all, drop away to pay attention to him.

“I don’t know,” Cor said at last, but at least he sounded thoughtful. “There are – certain duties to being Shield, traditionally and legally. Certain expectations. But it means I would be considered your right hand, and no one would be able to bar me entry to any room you’re in, not even Regis. Among other things.”

Harry waited and, when Cor didn’t look like he’d finish the thought, shrugged. “You don’t have to make a decision now. Ardyn will be around for a while, so Gil’ll stick around.”

Cor’s eyes widened, then narrowed, thoughtful.

“Take your time and think it over,” Harry added, and went back to his knitting.

News of the birth of Lunafreya Nox Fleuret took over the radios and the papers and the television for the next week. Ardyn stared at it all, soaking up the information with wide eyes.

He, however, chose to stay home with the Granica House and the garden and the children who were insisting on teaching him how to care for the squash and the herbs _properly_. Harry was glad for it, if only because it meant that he could station the usual Cleigne crew to watching the man and taking care of the kids and soothing the ruffled feathers of the Cleigne cells while he went to Leide. Gil stayed with Ardyn, his glamoured expression torn when he’d told Harry he was staying behind, but they’d heard Ardyn’s tongue-lashing about how “YOU WOULD ABANDON ME FOR A _THIRD_ TIME?!” all the way down the street.

A dark-haired woman who refused to open her eyes met them along the way. Only Harry an d Cor seemed to be able to see her, though Carbuncle was at her feet and gave him a cheerful chirp when he caught the dream deity’s eye.

“You walk the path of the righteous,” the woman noted. Death snorted; either she didn’t see it, or she ignored it. “But be careful where you tread, Master of Death – some things are set in stone.”

 _There’s always another way_ , Harry told her. By his side Cor was staring at her without fail, his hands nowhere near his swords but that meant nothing to a swordsman of his caliber.

“Perhaps,” the woman said, still quiet, still foreboding. Like Professor Trelawney, if she’d turned all of the anxiety of knowing the future into something quieter, sadder. “I look forward to seeing him try to stop you.”

It was Sophiar who came out to greet them when they got to Lestallum.

“Oh, thank the Six you’re still out here,” he said as soon as he spotted Harry. He ignored the Royal Guard and Cor in Harry’s shadow and the handful of Secret Hunters who were ranging like a pack of hunting hounds, lingering at corners and darting to their duties even while they scouted Lestallum like it was a battleground to be won.

Harry felt his eyebrows rising despite himself. “Mr. Sophiar.” The last time Harry had seen this man, he’d given him more than enough cause to think him a ghost.

Sophiar just waved a hand and grumped. “I’ve heard the rumors about you, boy, and heard Regis complain. Don’t let that fool talk you into moving to the city, you hear? You’d hate it there.”

The man had started off chastising, but by the end of it he sounded sincere. Right. Cid Sophiar, King Regis’s Mechanic, who had journeyed with the then-Prince across Lucis and even into Altissia, only to leave the Retinue when the Wall was pulled back to the Crown City’s borders.

A twofold reason, Harry thought to himself, and then set it aside. “You had something for us?”

“I did.” Cid waved them in, and didn’t even seem to take offense when Monica and Kabira stepped forward to sweep the small garage – closed down for the day – for whatever it was they looked for when they did a security sweep. Harry knew it was different from what he had looked for during the Wizarding War, like places to Emergency Floo or take off on brooms or even hide from Apparition tracking, but hell if he knew _how_ it was different.

Cor slid forward to accept whatever it was they were here for on Harry’s behalf, which was fitting, because it had been sent here in Cid’s name for Cor anyway. “From Weskham,” was all he said as he took it in hand and started inspecting it.

The name did startled Monica, who had been giving the package a significant look. “King Regis’s Advisor, Weskham Armaugh?”

“We still text,” Cor replied, and then tucked the package under his arm. He nodded to Harry. “We’re done here.”

Harry stared back, more than a little amused. But before he could say anything, Cid threw an arm around Cor’s shoulders and ruffled his hair. “You ain’t getting’ away from me that easy, boy! Siddown, siddown!”

Cor sat down.

Harry smiled despite himself, which was why he was unprepared when Cid thrust a finger into his face. “And _you too,_ young man! Don’t think I forgot about you!”

Faced with the ire of an elder, Harry also sat.

For all his gruff words, Cid was a surprising fount of knowledge. As the head mechanic of Hammerhead where the Crown City borders met outer Lucis, he saw anyone and everyone who were coming or going. And being who he was, the old man didn’t need them to talk in order for him to know what was going on.

Nimbus was just nodding along like the threats to Regis’s life were commonplace. “We’ve rooted out three attempts so far – none by factions based in outer Lucis, curiously enough.” She did not look in Harry’s direction, but Cid did, and Harry resisted the urge to scowl. “Mostly by sponsor-backed terrorist groups and some by Niflheim.”

“Sponsors?” Quintus leaned in, eyes glittering. “Whaddya mean?”

“Just as the name sounds,” Monica explained. She and Simon were at parade rest framing the garage doors, but at least they weren’t holding themselves as rigidly still. Harry had the sinking feeling that the closer they got to Insomnia, the more they and the rest of the Royal Guard would revert to their previous professionalism. And he’d _just_ gotten them to loosen up, too! “People with money, old or new, with a grudge against the Royal Family. Intel is working on tracking them down now.”

Cid was eyeing Harry with interest. “Did you and Reggie ever figure out how y’all are related?”

“We’re cousins,” Harry told him. “Anything more specific than that makes the machines go wild.”

“Huh.” Cid leaned back in his seat, thoughtful. “ _Huh._ ”

Thankfully, distraction came from Odin: “You failed to mention, in your explanation of the Royal Guard, that you’re… what? Special operations? Spies?”

“And don’t forget saboteurs,” Simon added dryly. “Whatever you need us to be, Highness, we have the skills and the magic to do it. Though traditionally we should’ve gotten our magic from _you_ as our principle royal, instead of the King.”

Wait, Harry was supposed to have been _arming them_?

“Wait, saboteur?” Marnie fell out from the camping chair where she’d sat upside-down and feet-up to roll onto her feet in one sleek movement. She was grinning. “Oh, you’ve _gotta_ tell me more.”

Odin and Quintus, who’d been closest to her, slowly edged their chairs away.

“Ask Kabira and Monica,” Simon said, and gestured at his teammates. “Magic and intel, they’d know better than me about the specifics. Now, if you had any _medical_ questions…”

“Right, you’re the medic. Makes sense. But still! You’ve gotta know some tricks, right? Specializations mean _shit_ when you’re living in each other’s pockets.”

Simon paused and eyed Marnie thoughtfully. Eventually it was Kabira who snorted and admitted, “She’s got us there, lieutenant.”

“So she does.” Simon didn’t break parade rest to scratch at his neck, but he looked sorely tempted. “How about I tell you after the paperwork comes through?”

“Paperwork?” Marnie made a face. “What paperwork?”

Cor turned very slowly to look at Harry, who did his level best to maintain an innocent expression.

Nimbus, who had been in on the plan and had suggested the Secret Hunter’s new name, just snorted. “You kids ready to get paid yet?”

Harry’s phone chimed while the rest of the conversation raged on:

> `**Mr.Fishing:** We’ve got it sorted out now, your group is officially the Lucian Vanguard of the Household Division of the Crownsguard, under the command of Staff Sergeant David Auburnbrie.`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** I know you hate politics so don’t come over, I’ll have all the paperwork sent electronically.`
> 
> `**Hunter.Green:** thank god`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** I expect you there for my wedding, though.`
> 
> `**Hunter.Green:** …what`
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** Obviously Clarus is going to be best man, but I want Cor to be a groomsman, and I would be delighted to have you there as a guest of honor, too.`
> 
> ` **Hunter.Green:** _what_ `
> 
> `**Mr.Fishing:** Aulea is excited to meet you!`
> 
> `**Hunter.Green:** goodbye`

“Regis is getting _married?!_ ”

“What?” Cor leaned over to read Harry’s phone screen. “Oh, no.”

Monica’s eyebrows had risen and were continuing to rise. “I thought he was betrothed? Did they decide on a date?”

“A year and change out from now,” Cid declared, and settled back contentedly in his seat. “He told ya, then?”

“You _knew_?”

“Serves you right for makin’ me think you were a damn _ghost_ , son! If I hafta show up and play nice with them blueblood folks, then I’m not doin’ it alone!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can have comfort objects no matter how old you are, don't let anybody tell you otherwise. You don't need an "excuse" for one either because fuck that noise, we gotta find happiness somewhere in the cold unfeeling universe of our lives. (If anybody's curious, mine is a particularly heavy and fuzzy blanket that functions as a weighted blanket.)
> 
> A [Household Division](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_Division) is an actual thing in British military, but at this point I'm starting to bend a couple of things in my worldbuilding haha. Mostly because the Royal Guard exists and takes charge of the close protection of a Lucis Caelum, and the Crownsguard Household Division is their army counterpart as the Citadel guard/resources/Regis's excuse to actually pay the people that protect his cousin.
> 
> (Like I mentioned last chapter, I might just end up drawing out my vision of the Lucian Crownsguard hierarchy; I've started cannibalizing the British Army one c:)
> 
> Other divisions of the Crownsguard include Infantry (where Cor was snatched up from), Combat Support (including the Royal Engineers and the Intelligence Service; Monica was transferred from the latter), and Combat Service (including Logistics, Medical Corp, etc etc).
> 
> I don't know how long it'll take me to put up the next fic in the series - I think it'll be a one-shot, if a pretty hefty one. We'll be firmly back in Cor's POV for that one, too, so please look forward to it!
> 
> Character details for the Secret Hunters/Lucian Vanguard, Nimbus Squad, etc are on the series notes, though I might have to move it to its own separate fic or something soon, I've almost run out of character allowance in the notes section. We've also got a [series playlist on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2xECNyV6NyIKRXaJCr14G4?si=3kdXggr_QBuejBuFwHILew) now!

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
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